Samara University

College of Engineering and Technology

Department of Computer Science

Computer Graphics(CoSc3121)

Chapter One
Introduction to Computer Graphics

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 What is computer Graphics?

Computer graphics is an art of drawing pictures, lines, charts, etc. using computers
with the help of programming. Computer graphics image is made up of number of
pixels. Pixel is the smallest addressable graphical unit represented on the computer
screen.
 Computer is information processing machine. User needs to communicate with
computer and the computer graphics is one of the most effective and commonly used
ways of communication with the user.
 It displays the information in the form of graphical objects such as pictures, charts,
diagram and graphs.
 Graphical objects convey more information in less time and easily understandable
formats for example statically graph shown in stock exchange.
 In computer graphics picture or graphics objects are presented as a collection of discrete
pixels.
 We can control intensity and color of pixel which decide how picture look like.
 The special procedure determines which pixel will provide the best approximation to the
desired picture or graphics object this process is known as Rasterization.
 The process of representing continuous picture or graphics object as a collection of
discrete pixels is called Scan Conversion.
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 Application of computer graphics

 User interface: - Visual object which we observe on screen which communicates with
user is one of the most useful applications of the computer graphics.
 Plotting of graphics and chart in industry, business, government and educational
organizations drawing like bars, pie-charts, histogram’s are very useful for quick and
good decision making.
 Office automation and desktop publishing: - It is used for creation and dissemination
of information. It is used in in-house creation and printing of documents which contains
text, tables, graphs and other forms of drawn or scanned images or picture.
 Computer aided drafting and design: - It uses graphics to design components and
system such as automobile bodies structures of building etc.

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 Application of computer graphics…

 Simulation and animation: - Use of graphics in simulation makes mathematic models

and mechanical systems more realistic and easy to study.
 Art and commerce: - There are many tools provided by graphics which allows used to
make their picture animated and attracted which are used in advertising.
 Process control: - Now a day’s automation is used which is graphically displayed on the
screen.
 Cartography: - Computer graphics is also used to represent geographic maps, weather
maps, oceanographic charts etc.
 Education and training: - Computer graphics can be used to generate models of
physical, financial and economic systems. These models can be used as educational aids.
 Image processing: - It is used to process image by changing property of the image.

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 Display devices
 Display devices are also known as output devices.
 Most commonly used output device in a graphics system is a video monitor.

A. Cathode Ray Tube

Fig. 1.1: - Cathode ray tube.

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 Display devices…
 It is an evacuated glass tube.
 An electron gun at the rear of the tube produce a beam of electrons which is directed
towards the screen of the tube by a high voltage typically 15000 to 20000 volts
 Inner side screen is coated with phosphor substance which gives light when it is stroked bye
electrons.
 Control grid controls velocity of electrons before they hit the phosphor.
 The control grid voltage determines how many electrons are actually in the electron beam.
The negative the control voltage is the fewer the electrons that pass through the grid.
 Thus control grid controls Intensity of the spot where beam strikes the screen.
 The focusing system concentrates the electron beam so it converges to small point when
hits the phosphor coating.
 Deflection system directs beam which decides the point where beam strikes the screen.
 Deflection system of the CRT consists of two pairs of parallel plates which are vertical and
horizontal deflection plates.
 Voltage applied to vertical and horizontal deflection plates is control vertical and horizontal
deflection respectively.

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 Display devices…
There are two techniques used for producing images on the CRT screen:
1. Vector scan/Random scan display.
2. Raster scan display.
1.Vector scan/Random scan display.

Fig. 1.2: -
Architecture of a
vector display.

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 Display devices…
 Vector scan display directly traces out only the desired lines on CRT.
 If we want line between point p1 & p2 then we directly drive the beam deflection circuitry
which focus beam directly from point p1 to p2.
 If we do not want to display line from p1 to p2 and just move then we can blank the beam
as we move it.
 To move the beam across the CRT, the information about both magnitude and direction is
required. This information is generated with the help of vector graphics generator.
 Fig. 1.2 shows architecture of vector display. It consists of display controller, CPU,
display buffer memory and CRT.
 Display controller is connected as an I/O peripheral to the CPU.
 Display buffer stores computer produced display list or display program.

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 Display devices…
 The Program contains point & line plotting commands with end point co-ordinates as well
as character plotting commands.
 Display controller interprets command and sends digital and point co-ordinates to a vector
generator.
 Vector generator then converts the digital co-ordinate value to analog voltages for beam
deflection circuits that displace an electron beam which points on the CRT’s screen.
 In this technique beam is deflected from end point to end point hence this techniques is
also called random scan.
 We know as beam strikes phosphors coated screen it emits light but that light decays after
few milliseconds and therefore it is necessary to repeat through the display list to refresh
the screen at least 30 times per second to avoid flicker.
 As display buffer is used to store display list and used to refreshing, it is also called
refresh buffer

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 Display devices…
2.Raster Scan Display

Fig. 1.3: - Architecture of a raster display.

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 Display devices…
 Fig. 1.3 shows the architecture of Raster display. It consists of display controller,
CPU, video controller, refresh buffer, keyboard, mouse and CRT.
 The display image is stored in the form of 1’s and 0’s in the refresh buffer.
 The video controller reads this refresh buffer and produces the actual image on
screen.
 It will scan one line at a time from top to bottom & then back to the top.

OFF ON
Vertical Retrace
Horizontal Retrace

Fig. 1.4: - Raster scan CRT. 11

 Display devices…
 In this method the horizontal and vertical deflection signals are generated to move
the beam all over the screen in a pattern shown in fig. 1.4.
 Here beam is swept back & forth from left to the right.
 When beam is moved from left to right it is ON.
 When beam is moved from right to left it is OFF and process of moving beam
from right to left after completion of row is known as Horizontal Retrace.
 When beam is reach at the bottom of the screen. It is made OFF and rapidly
retraced back to the top left to start again and process of moving back to top is
known as Vertical Retrace.
 The screen image is maintained by repeatedly scanning the same image. This
process is known as Refreshing of Screen.

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 Display devices…
 In raster scan displays a special area of memory is dedicated to graphics only.
This memory is called Frame Buffer.
 Frame buffer holds set of intensity values for all the screen points.
 That intensity is retrieved from frame buffer and display on screen one row at a
time.
 Each screen point referred as pixel or Pel (Picture Element).
 Each pixel can be specified by its row and column numbers.
 It can be simply black and white system or color system.
 In simple black and white system each pixel is either ON or OFF, so only one bit
per pixel is needed.
 Additional bits are required when color and intensity variations can be displayed
up to 24-bits per pixel are included in high quality display systems.
 On a black and white system with one bit per pixel the frame buffer is commonly
called a Bitmap. And for systems with multiple bits per pixel, the frame buffer is
often referred as a Pixmap. 13
 Display devices…
Base of Difference Raster Scan System Random Scan System

Electron Beam The electron beam is swept across the The electron beam is directed only to the
screen, one row at a time, from top to parts of screen where a picture is to be
bottom. drawn.
Resolution Its resolution is poor because raster Its resolution is good because this system
system in contrast produces zigzag produces smooth lines drawings because
lines that are plotted as discrete point CRT beam directly follows the line path.
sets.
Picture Definition Picture definition is stored as a set of Picture definition is stored as a set of line
intensity values for all screen points, drawing instructions in a display file.
called pixels in a refresh buffer area.
Realistic Display The capability of this system to store These systems are designed for line-
intensity values for pixel makes it well drawing and can’t display realistic shaded
suited for the realistic display of scenes.
scenes contain shadow and color
pattern.
Draw an Image Screen points/pixels are used to draw Mathematical functions are used to draw
an image. an image.

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 Display devices…
Color CRT Monitors

 A CRT monitors displays color pictures by using a combination of phosphors that

emit different colored light.
 It produces range of colors by combining the light emitted by different phosphors.
 There are two basic techniques for color display:
1. Beam-penetration technique
2. Shadow-mask technique
1. Beam-penetration technique

Fig. 1.5: - Beam-penetration CRT

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 Display devices…
1. Beam-penetration technique

 This technique is used with random scan monitors.

 In this technique inside of CRT coated with two phosphor layers usually red and
green. The outer layer of red and inner layer of green phosphor.
 The color depends on how far the electron beam penetrates into the phosphor layer.
 A beam of fast electron penetrates more and excites inner green layer while slow
electron excites outer red layer.
 At intermediate beam speed we can produce combination of red and green lights
which emit additional two colors orange and yellow.
 The beam acceleration voltage controls the speed of the electrons and hence color of
pixel.
 It is a low cost technique to produce color in random scan monitors.
 It can display only four colors.
 Quality of picture is not good compared to other techniques.

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 Display devices…
2. Shadow Mask Technique

Fig. 1.6: - Shadow-mask CRT.

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 Display devices…
2. Shadow Mask Technique

 It produces wide range of colors as compared to beam-penetration technique.

 This technique is generally used in raster scan displays. Including color TV.
 In this technique CRT has three phosphor color dots at each pixel position. One dot for
red, one for green and one for blue light. This is commonly known as Dot Triangle.
 Here in CRT there are three electron guns present, one for each color dot. And a
shadow mask grid just behind the phosphor coated screen.
 The shadow mask grid consists of series of holes aligned with the phosphor dot
pattern.
 Three electron beams are deflected and focused as a group onto the shadow mask and
when they pass through a hole they excite a dot triangle.
 In dot triangle three phosphor dots are arranged so that each electron beam can activate
only its corresponding color dot when it passes through the shadow mask.
 A dot triangle when activated appears as a small dot on the screen which has color of
combination of three small dots in the dot triangle.
 By changing the intensity of the three electron beams we can obtain different colors in
the shadow mask CRT.

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 Display devices…

Direct-view storage tubes (DVST)

Fig. 1.7: - Direct-view storage tube.

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 Display devices…
Direct-view storage tubes (DVST)
 In raster scan display we do refreshing of the screen to maintain a screen image.
 DVST gives alternative method for maintaining the screen image.
 DVST uses the storage grid which stores the picture information as a charge
distribution just behind the phosphor coated screen.
 DVST consists two electron guns a primary gun and a flood gun.
 A primary gun stores the picture pattern and the flood gun maintains the picture
display.
 A primary gun emits high speed electrons which strike on the storage grid to draw
the picture pattern.
 As electron beam strikes on the storage grid with high speed, it knocks out electrons
from the storage grid keeping the net positive charge.
 The knocked out electrons are attracted towards the collector.
 The net positive charge on the storage grid is nothing but the picture pattern.
 The continuous low speed electrons from flood gun pass through the control grid
and are attracted to the positive charged area of the storage grid.
 The low speed electrons then penetrate the storage grid and strike the phosphor
coating without affecting the positive charge pattern on the storage grid.
 During this process the collector just behind the storage grid smooth out the flow of
flood electrons. 20
 Display devices…
Direct-view storage tubes (DVST)
Advantage of DVST
•Refreshing of CRT is not required.
•Very complex pictures can be displayed at very high resolution without flicker.
•Flat screen.

Disadvantage of DVST
•They do not display color and are available with single level of line intensity.
•For erasing it is necessary to removal of charge on the storage grid so erasing and
redrawing process take several second.
•Erasing selective part of the screen cannot be possible.
•Cannot used for dynamic graphics application as on erasing it produce unpleasant
flash over entire screen.
•It has poor contrast as a result of the comparatively low accelerating potential applied
to the flood electrons.
•The performance of DVST is somewhat inferior to the refresh CRT.

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 Display devices…
Flat Panel Display
 The term flat panel display refers to a class of video device that have reduced
volume, weight & power requirement compared to a CRT.
 As flat panel display is thinner than CRTs, we can hang them on walls
 We can separate flat panel display in two categories:
 Emissive displays: - the emissive display or emitters are devices that convert
electrical energy into light. For Ex. Plasma panel, thin film electroluminescent
displays and light emitting diodes.
 Non emissive displays: - non emissive display or non emitters use optical effects
to convert sunlight or light from some other source into graphics patterns. For Ex.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display).

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 Display devices…
Plasma Panels displays

Fig. 1.8: - Basic design of a plasma-panel display device.

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 Display devices…
Plasma Panels displays
 This is also called gas discharge displays.
 It is constructed by filling the region between two glass plates with a mixture of
gases that usually includes neon.
 A series of vertical conducting ribbons is placed on one glass panel and a set of
horizontal ribbon is built into the other glass panel.
 Firing voltage is applied to a pair of horizontal and vertical conductors cause the gas
at the intersection of the two conductors to break down into glowing plasma of
electrons and ions.
 Picture definition is stored in a refresh buffer and the firing voltages are applied to
refresh the pixel positions, 60 times per second.
 Alternating current methods are used to provide faster application of firing voltages
and thus brighter displays.
 Separation between pixels is provided by the electric field of conductor.
 One disadvantage of plasma panels is they were strictly monochromatic device that
means shows only one color other like black and white.

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 Display devices…
Thin Film Electroluminescent Displays.

Fig. 1.9: - Basic design of a thin-film electro luminescent display device.

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 Display devices…
Thin Film Electroluminescent Displays.

 It is similar to plasma panel display but region between the glass plates is filled with
phosphors such as Zink sulphide doped with magnesium instead of gas.
 When sufficient voltage is applied the phosphors becomes a conductor in area of
intersection of the two electrodes.
 Electrical energy is then absorbed by the manganese atoms which then release the
energy as a spot of light similar to the glowing plasma effect in plasma panel.
 It requires more power than plasma panel.
 In this good color and gray scale difficult to achieve.

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 Display devices…
Light Emitting Diode (LED).

 In this display a matrix of multi-color light emitting diode is arranged to form the
pixel position in the display. And the picture definition is stored in refresh buffer.
 Similar to scan line refreshing of CRT information is read from the refresh buffer
and converted to voltage levels that are applied to the diodes to produce the light
pattern on the display.

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 Display devices…
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

Fig. 1.10: - Light twisting shutter effect used in

design of most LCD.
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 Display devices…
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

 It is generally used in small system such as calculator and portable laptop.

 This non emissive device produce picture by passing polarized light from the
surrounding or from an internal light source through liquid crystal material that can be
aligned to either block or transmit the light.
 The liquid crystal refreshes to fact that these compounds have crystalline arrangement
of molecules then also flows like liquid.
 It consists of two glass plates each with light polarizer at right angles to each other
sandwich the liquid crystal material between the plates.
 Rows of horizontal transparent conductors are built into one glass plate, and column of
vertical conductors are put into the other plates.

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 Display devices…
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
 The intersection of two conductors defines a pixel position.
 In the ON state polarized light passing through material is twisted so that it will pass
through the opposite polarizer.
 In the OFF state it will reflect back towards source.
 We applied a voltage to the two intersecting conductor to align the molecules so that
the light is not twisted.
 This type of flat panel device is referred to as a passive matrix LCD.
 In active matrix LCD transistors are used at each (x, y) grid point.
 Transistor cause crystal to change their state quickly and also to control degree to
which the state has been changed.
 Transistor can also serve as a memory for the state until it is changed.
 So transistor make cell ON for all time giving brighter display then it would be if it had
to be refresh periodically 30
 Display devices…
Three dimensional viewing devices
 The graphics monitor which are display three dimensional scenes are devised using a
technique that reflects a CRT image from a vibrating flexible mirror.

Fig. 1.11: - 3D display system uses a vibrating mirror.

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 Display devices…
Three dimensional viewing devices

 Vibrating mirror changes its focal length due to vibration which is synchronized with the
display of an object on CRT.
 Each point on the object is reflected from the mirror into spatial position corresponding
to distance of that point from a viewing position.
 Very good example of this system is GENISCO SPACE GRAPH system, which use
vibrating mirror to project 3D objects into a 25 cm by 25 cm by 25 cm volume. This
system is also capable to show 2D cross section at different depth.

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 Display devices…
Application of 3D viewing devices
 In medical to analyze data from ultra-sonography.
 In geological to analyze topological and seismic data.
 In designing like solid objects viewing and 3D viewing of objects.

Stereoscopic and virtual-reality systems

Stereoscopic system

Fig. 1.12: - stereoscopic views. 33

 Display devices…
Stereoscopic system
 Stereoscopic views does not produce three dimensional images, but it produce 3D
effects by presenting different view to each eye of an observer so that it appears to
have depth.
 To obtain this we first need to obtain two views of object generated from viewing
direction corresponding to each eye.
 We can construct the two views as computer generated scenes with different
viewing positions or we can use stereo camera pair to photograph some object or
scene.
 When we see simultaneously both the view as left view with left eye and right view
with right eye then two views is merge and produce image which appears to have
depth.
 One way to produce stereoscopic effect is to display each of the two views with
raster system on alternate refresh cycles.
 The screen is viewed through glasses with each lance design such a way that it act
as a rapidly alternating shutter that is synchronized to block out one of the views.

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 Display devices…
Virtual-reality

 Virtual reality is the system which produce images in such a way that we feel that
our surrounding is what we are set in display devices but in actually it does not.
 In virtual reality user can step into a scene and interact with the environment.

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 Graphics input devices
Keyboards
 Keyboards are used as entering text strings. It is efficient devices for inputting such a non-
graphics data as picture label.
 Cursor control key’s & function keys are common features on general purpose keyboards.
 Many other application of key board which we are using daily used of computer graphics
are commanding & controlling through keyboard etc.
Mouse
 Mouse is small size hand-held box used to position screen cursor.
 Wheel or roller or optical sensor is directing pointer on the according to movement of
mouse.
 Three buttons are placed on the top of the mouse for signaling the execution of some
operation.
 Now a day’s more advance mouse is available which are very useful in graphics
application for example Z mouse.

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 Graphics input devices
Trackball and Space ball
 Trackball is ball that can be rotated with the finger or palm of the hand to produce cursor movement.
 Potentiometer attached to the ball, measure the amount and direction of rotation.
 They are often mounted on keyboard or Z mouse.
 Space ball provide six-degree of freedom i.e. three dimensional.
 In space ball strain gauges measure the amount of pressure applied to the space ball to provide input
for spatial positioning and orientation as the ball is pushed or pulled in various directions.
 Space balls are used in 3D positioning and selection operations in virtual reality system, modeling,
animation, CAD and other application.

Joysticks
 A joy stick consists of small vertical lever mounted on a base that is used to steer the screen cursor
around.
 Most joy sticks selects screen positioning according to actual movement of stick (lever).
 Some joy sticks are works on pressure applied on sticks.
 Sometimes joy stick mounted on keyboard or sometimes used alone.
 Movement of the stick defines the movement of the cursor.
 In pressure sensitive stick pressure applied on stick decides movement of the cursor. This pressure is
measured using strain gauge.
 This pressure sensitive joy sticks also called as isometric joy sticks and they are non movable sticks.

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 Graphics input devices
Data glove

•Data glove is used to grasp virtual objects.

•The glow is constructed with series of sensors that detect hand and figure motions.
•Electromagnetic coupling is used between transmitter and receiver antennas which used to
provide position and orientation of the hand.
•Transmitter & receiver Antenna can be structured as a set of three mutually perpendicular
coils forming 3D Cartesian coordinates system.
•Input from the glove can be used to position or manipulate object in a virtual scene.

Digitizer
•Digitizer is common device for drawing painting or interactively selecting coordinates
position on an object.
•One type of digitizers is graphics tablet which input two dimensional coordinates by
activating hand cursor or stylus at selected position on a flat surface.
•Stylus is flat pencil shaped device that is pointed at the position on the tablet.
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 Graphics input devices
Image Scanner
•Image Scanner scan drawing, graph, color, & black and white photos or text and can
stored for computer processing by passing an optical scanning mechanism over the
information to be stored.
•Once we have internal representation of a picture we can apply transformation.
•We can also apply various image processing methods to modify the picture.
•For scanned text we can apply modification operation.

Touch Panels

•As name suggest Touch Panels allow displaying objects or screen-position to be selected
with the touch or finger.
•A typical application is selecting processing option shown in graphical icons.
•Some system such as a plasma panel are designed with touch screen
•Other system can be adapted for touch input by fitting transparent touch sensing
mechanism over a screen.
•Touch input can be recorded with following methods.
1. Optical methods
2. Electrical methods
3. Acoustical methods 39
 Graphics input devices
Optical method
 Optical touch panel employ a line of infrared LEDs along one vertical and one horizontal
edge.
 The opposite edges of the edges containing LEDs are contain light detectors.
 When we touch at a particular position the line of light path breaks and according to that
breaking line coordinate values are measured.
 In case two line cuts it will take average of both pixel positions.
 LEDs operate at infrared frequency so it cannot be visible to user

Electrical method
 An electrical touch panel is constructed with two transparent plates separated by small
distance.
 One is coated with conducting material and other is coated with resistive material.
 When outer plate is touch it will come into contact with internal plate.
 When both plates touch it creates voltage drop across the resistive plate that is
converted into coordinate values of the selected position.

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 Graphics input devices
Acoustical method

 In acoustical touch panel high frequency sound waves are generated in horizontal and
vertical direction across a glass plates.
 When we touch the screen the waves from that line are reflected from finger.
 These reflected waves reach again at transmitter position and time difference between
sending and receiving is measure and converted into coordinate values.

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 Graphics input devices
Light pens
 Light pens are pencil-shaped device used to select positions by detecting light coming
from points on the CRT screen.
 Activated light pens pointed at a spot on the screen as the electron beam lights up that
spot and generate electronic pulse that causes the coordinate position of the electron
beam to be recorded.

Voice systems
 It is used to accept voice command in some graphics workstations.
 It is used to initiate graphics operations.
 It will match input against predefined directory of words and phrases.
 Dictionary is setup for a particular operator by recording his voice.
 Each word is speak several times and then analyze the word and establishes a frequency
pattern for that word along with corresponding function need to be performed.
 When operator speaks command it will match with predefine dictionary and perform
desired action.

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 Graphics software and standard
 There are mainly two types of graphics software:
1.General programming package
2.Special-purpose application package

General programming package

 A general programming package provides an extensive set of graphics function that can
be used in high level programming language such as C or FORTRAN.
 It includes basic drawing element shape like line, curves, polygon, color of element
transformation etc.
 Example: - GL (Graphics Library).
Special-purpose application package
 Special-purpose application package are customize for particular application which
implement required facility and provides interface so that user need not to vory about
how it will work (programming). User can simply use it by interfacing with
application.
 Example: - CAD, medical and business systems.

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 Graphics software and standard
Software Standard
 Primary goal of standardize graphics software is portability so that it can be used
in any hardware systems & avoid rewriting of software program for different
system
 Some of these standards are discuss below
Graphical Kernel System (GKS)
 This system was adopted as a first graphics software standard by the international
standard organization (ISO) and various national standard organizations including
ANSI.
 GKS was originally designed as the two dimensional graphics package and then later
extension was developed for three dimensions.
PHIGS (Programmer’s Hierarchical Interactive Graphic Standard)
 PHIGS is extension of GKS. Increased capability for object modeling, color
specifications, surface rendering, and picture manipulation are provided in PHIGS.
 Extension of PHIGS called “PHIGS+” was developed to provide three dimensional
surface shading capabilities not available in PHIGS.

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Thank you!

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